HELP! Day 24, no pips, tried to help...

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danikochick

Hatching
Sep 16, 2019
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This is my first time trying to incubate eggs and things have definitely not been perfect, I've had some ups and downs with temperature, and my eggs are way late. Todays is day 24 and I am LEAVING tomorrow for a 5 day vacation (I know, terrible timing, but I thought they'd be out by now!!!). A friend who has raised chicks was going to care for them, but I don't want to pass her an incubator and make her deal with them, especially if they're all going to die on her.

So... after reading on these forums and asking another friend, I decided to try to help one (the strongest one which was moving a lot for the past couple days) by creating a hole in the air pocket. I can't see where the beak is, hear no chirping, and see thick red veins.

Did I screw up? Is this chick premature? Did I just kill it?!! HELP!!!

EDIT: I did the float test prior to creating the hole - this egg and the others are all alive and wiggling.
 
To me, it doesn't look "ready" the veins have not retracted. Since you opened that part of the shell, the chick may shrink wrap. If it were mine, would apply some triple antibiotic ointment/bacitracin or coconut oil to the exposed membrane to help keep it from drying out. Put the egg back in the incubator and leave it closed.
I've not hatched many eggs, so am by no means a hatching adviser. You may find the article below helpful or hopefully someone like @Pyxis or @ChickenCanoe will chime in.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/guide-to-assisted-hatching-for-all-poultry.72886/

How many do you think "might" hatch? That's a good friend is they are going to help out while you are away - I would make sure to get them something really nice. Do keep in mind, that if 24 days is correct, then there may be problems that your friend has to deal with - chicks not thriving, deformities, etc. I do hope it all works out and goes well for you.
 
I don't want to discourage you- but something isn't right there. It looks too early but at 24 days... that's too late. Something just isn't right and the results are likely going to be hard to deal with. That said innocent animals are killed all the time for no reason and you tried to do the right thing- so don't beat yourself up- it happens. Do what you can to save it (as mentioned above) but if it doesn't make it don't let it ruin your chicken experience. It sounds like you had some "ups and downs" as you put it- when it comes to incubation you can't really have those... it needs to be very stable, accurate, and constant. Not sure what incubator you used, but most of them maintain stable environments.

Best of luck- report back and tell us what happens so we know.
 
Thanks, I just put some coconut oil on it, but to be honest I think it might have died already. I could see it moving / breathing before but now it's.... not. Trying really hard not to beat myself up about it, but obviously that's near impossible.

And yeah, I've been aware for a while that something isn't right. I only had 3 viable eggs (got a batch from my friend, 6 had nothing and 1 was an early quitter) and like I said, my incubator is home made and I've had a couple ups and downs (one night temp dropped to 91F, pretty much freaked out), but at every stage they kept looking ok and moving around, so I just let them keep going... and now they just.... won't hatch...

Needless to say, what I thought was going to be a fun experiment has been an extremely stressful experience. It's easy to see in hindsight what went wrong, but I thought everything was somewhat okay up until now...
 
It's still alive, I just saw it move. I'll give it until tomorrow morning before we have to go and then......... :(

Praying for a chicken miracle
 
If these are chicken eggs, either the calendar is wrong or the temp was low throughout. 24 days is bad. You tried to be ready for vacation with a backup plan but it just didn't work. I try not to help eggs hatch unless I'm sure the problem was my fault. It still usually doesn't go well. I've adopted the philosophy that if you provide the best conditions, what hatches, hatches and what doesn't wasn't meant to hatch. I've also started doing mostly large batches so it isn't so painful when some don't make it.
Survival of the fittest. I surmise that if I help every embryo that won't hatch on its own, I would be negatively affecting the vigor and survivability of the breed.
 

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